April 13, 2017

Your body processes an illegal drug or a medication in the same manner it processes any other substance, such as food or water. Everything that enters your body must go through the same biological steps of metabolism until the substance ultimately ends up as waste material in your urine. However, even at this last state, a substance is still detectable.

Drug Detection Times

There is a certain window of time known as the “Drug Detection Time” in which a substance is detectable in urine, blood, saliva and hair. After that time, your body flushes out any trace of that substance. The Detection Time is the amount of time after consumption that a positive result will show on a drug test.

While the substance may still be in your system, drug test also employ the guidelines of “Cutoff Levels”. Each drug has a designated cut off level in which a minimum amount must be present in the urine in order for the test to return a positive result. However, it is important to know that substances are detectable for a much longer amount of time in urine than in other specimen types.

Other Factors to Consider

Although drug tests have detection times and cutoff levels, there are many other factors that may affect the results of a drug test:

Age – our metabolism slows with age, resulting in substances being present in our systems longer.

Body Fat – our metabolism also slows with the more body fat we have, causing substances to stay in our system longer. Also, certain drug metabolites are stored within fat cells, causing them to be present longer in individuals with high amounts of body fat.

Physical Condition- when a person is sick, their metabolism is slowed, resulting in a longer window of detection.

Metabolism- those whose bodies have a higher metabolisms are able to flush toxins much quicker than those with slow metabolisms.

Urine Ph- the more acidic a person’s urine, the shorter the drug detection times.

Frequency of Use – habitual users have a higher tolerance of the substance and their bodies are able to metabolize the substance out of their system in a shorter period of time.

Half-life of Drug- each substance has a specific length of time in which its active components is reduced by half, or 50%. Substances with longer half-life's stay in the system longer.

How Long Will Marijuana Show up in Urine? How Long Will Opiates Show up in Urine? How long Will Valium Show up in Urine? How Long Will Xanax Show up in Urine? How Long Will Clonazepam Show up in Urine? How Long Will Diazepam Show up in Urine? How Long Will Ativan Show up in Urine? How Long Will Cocaine Show up in Urine? How Long Will Oxycodone Show up in Urine? How Long Will Heroin Show up in Urine?

The chart below provides general detection times within a urine specimen for various drugs and medication, but keep in mind, these time frames do not take into consideration the above listed factors.

If you are anticipating a misdemeanor or felony: Pinellas County Violation of Probation caused by dirty urine, we are lawyers who can help. Each violation of probation case is unique. We will start by looking at the aggravating and mitigating circumstances of the facts associated with your original criminal charge. it is important to develop a a strategy in anticipation of the violation of probation court proceedings.

Sometimes, with a client’s proactive efforts, he might actually benefit from a simple termination of further probation supervision. (Early termination of probation) There are other times that the judge can be persuaded to ‘reinstate” or put our client back on probation. Obviously, our mutual objective is to avoid a Pinellas county jail or state prison prison sentence. See: Alternatives to serving jail If you originally received a withhold of adjudication, we will want to ask the judge to “maintain the withhold” so as to avoid a formal misdemeanor conviction or you becoming a convicted felon.

April 06, 2017

The Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) uses a classification system that takes into consideration many different factors in arriving at a Custody Assessment and Reclassification System (CARS) "score." This score is used to assign a person to one of five different custody levels. A second score is used to assign Internal Risk Management (IRMS) which further drives the classification and housing setting. Finally, a third score is the "housing level scoring system," which assigns individuals to one of five different housing levels. All of these systems work together in placing a person within the prison system.

How the Three Scores are Implemented

The three scores have an overlapping criteria that covers a wide array of the inmate’s current offense, sentence, prior criminal record, gang affiliation, institutional conduct, motivation, and attitudes. They are designed to classify inmates according to their risk to become a management problem and potentially be involved in serious and/or repetitive misconduct while incarcerated. They are not designed to predict risk of recidivism.

Custody Assessment and Reclassification System (CARS)

The more traditional system is known as the Custody Assessment and Reclassification System (CARS). It consists of five distinct custody levels which are defined as follows:

Maximum: Inmates who are under a sentence of death.

Close: Inmates who must be maintained within an armed perimeter or under direct, armed supervision when outside of a secure perimeter.

Medium: Inmates eligible for placement at a work camp with a secure perimeter, but who are not eligible for placement in an outside work assignment without armed supervision.

Minimum: Inmates eligible for outside work assignments, but not for placement at a community residential facility.

Community: Inmates eligible for placement at a community residential facility.

In assigning inmates to these five custody levels, the FDC employs a process at admission that scores inmates on the following items:

These items are then totaled and a custody level is determined by applying the following scale:

Community and minimum custody: 0-10 points Medium custody: 11-19 points Close custody: 20 or more points Maximum custody: Death row

As you can see, the initial custody level is driven by the inmate’s current offense and prior convictions. Those initial points can be reduced later by positive behavior and the Florida Department of Corrections staff’s assessment of “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” adjustment to the incarceration and inmate population.

Internal Management Score

The second system that drives the inmate’s classification and housing setting is part of the internal risk management system (IRMS). The IRMS is designed to assign each inmate into one of five internal management (or IM) categories as listed below:

IM1: Low risk

IM2: Low-Moderate risk

IM3: Moderate risk

IM4: Moderate-High risk

IM5: High risk

Placement into one of these five levels is based on an internal scoring process that reviews the inmate’s recent disciplinary report (DR) history (severity and time frames), gang activity, and certain crimes (homicide and domestic violence). There is another scoring system within the IRMS that consists of eight items, some of which are also used for establishing the CARS and IM level, but are only used to increase the inmate’s IM level. These are as follows:

1. Disciplinary history (disciplinary conduct) 2. Close management history (placements in administrative segregation) 3. Security threat group history (designated as STG) 4. Institutional adjustment history (overall adjustment or OAR score of “unsatisfactory,” “satisfactory,” or “above satisfactory” based on work, programs, and disciplinary reports) 5. Age (same as CARS) 6. Outside Influence (positive, neutral, or negative) 7. Attitude and motivation (interest in work assignments and programs) 8. Overall classification assessment score

The Housing Level System

The third and final system is also part of the IRMS, but is referred to as the housing level scoring system. It is designed to assign inmates to one of the following five housing levels based on their IM level and other characteristics noted below:

HO1 IM Level 1 and incarcerated for at least one year

HO2 IM Level 1 and incarcerated for 3-12 months

HO3 IM Level 3 escape flag, or incarcerated for less than 90 days

HO4 IM Level 4 escape flags, close management, high-severity crime

HO5 IM Level 5, death row, escape, special management

Significantly, HO5 inmates require placement in a cell, while HO4 inmates should be placed in a cell if available. HO3, HO2, and HO1 inmates are to be assigned to open-bay dorms. Of the three systems, the housing level system is the most important process for determining where an inmate is actually housed. But as shown above, it is driven by the IM system, which, in turn, is being influenced by the CARS custody system.

Classification... Going Right to the Source

The DOC must systematically proceed through its classification process and that only then will they decide on the appropriate custody level and housing level. The off-hand opinion of a Classification Officer is not an accurate substitute for that official process - one which will not begin until after an individual is sentenced.

Florida Administrative Code ss.33-601.210 sets forth the criteria and process used for the classification process. You will find that it provides for repeated assessments over time for the purpose of reclassification and a change of custody levels and housing levels. This is done to take into consideration that a person may have served a significant portion of their sentence and are close to their release date or to take into consideration completion of programs or good behavior.

We are Pinellas Criminal Defense Attorneys Who Can Help! Felony criminal charge arising out of the St. Petersburg / Clearwater area - lawyers who can help. If you believe there is an “outstanding Pinellas county warrant” - discuss your possible remedies right over the phone.